Reaping What They Sow? Victim-Offender Overlap Perceptions and Victim Blaming Attitudes

Abstract

Examining the tendency to attribute blame to crime victims reveals a striking dichotomy. Some types, such as children, elicit intense emotional reactions from the public. Alternatively, others, such as the typical victims of street crimes, garner substantially less concern. According to the “just world” hypothesis, these latter groups may be perceived by the public as criminally involved, and so “blameworthy” for their victimization. We test this hypothesis—specifically, we evaluate whether perceptions of the extent of victims’ involvement in crime are associated with dispositional attributions for victimization. Data from a recent national survey (N = 760) are analyzed. To extend generalizability, we replicate results with a college sample (N = 733). Findings indicate that victim-offender overlap perceptions vary consistently by crime type. There is also consistent evidence that perceiving a larger victim-offender overlap is associated with the view that the causes of criminal victimization are, in part, dispositional—and thus that crime victims hold personal responsibility.

Keywords:

• causal attributions for victimization
• victim blaming
• victim-offender overlap
• victimology
• violent crime

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are grateful to Shawn Bushway for his assistance with collecting the data. The authors also acknowledge Thomas Baker for his support with data collection and insightful comments on an earlier draft. The authors thank the editor and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful remarks on an earlier version of the article.

FUNDING

This work was funded by the University at Albany Faculty Research Awards Program (FRAP)-Category A.

Notes

1. To illustrate, a provision of Florida’s victim compensation statute states, “the victim’s conduct must not have contributed to the situation that brought about his or her own injury or death” (Florida Office of the Attorney General, 2014). Additionally, Florida law stipulates that claimants must submit to a criminal background check prior to services being rendered. Specifically, for compensation to be dispensed, “the victim or claimant must not have been confined or in custody in a county or municipal facility; a state or federal correctional facility; or a juvenile detention commitment, or assessment facility; adjudicated as a habitual felony offender, habitual violent offender, or violent career criminal; or adjudicated of a forcible felony offense.” In a comparable direction, Arkansas law prohibits awarding compensation to victims who have “been convicted of a felony involving criminally injurious conduct” or engaged in “illegal activity” (e.g., victim was a minor and drinking alcohol, victim was in an “illegal place of business” such as a house of prostitution) during the commission of the offense (Arkansas Attorney General’s Office, 2015). Several other states have set forth similar restrictions for victim aid (Dubber, 2002; Murphy, 2014).

2. Howard’s (1984) measure of victim blame referred specifically to the victim depicted in the scenario. That is, respondents were asked to rate the extent to which the individual victim was to blame for the attack rather than an indicator of general victim blame (i.e., all victims of these types of crimes).

3. The sampling frame for the national survey was Survey Monkey’s Audience opt-in panel. Participation was limited to panelists who were over the age of 18 and resided in the United States. Opt-in Internet panels are preassembled (typically through diverse recruitment strategies) groups of Internet users who have previously agreed to take part in surveys. The use of opt-in panels is stronger methodologically than the more common approach of relying on crowdsourcing (Berinsky, Huber, & Lenz, 2012; Weinberg et al., 2014).

4. Substantively identical findings emerge when the analysis is estimated separately for the students at each university, with the single exception that the positive correlation between conservatism and dispositional attributions for victimization (see below) only reaches conventional thresholds for significance at one university.

5. Both surveys proceeded under Institutional Review Board approval.

6. For instance, dispositional attributions of offending (i.e., personal shortcomings) have been measured using items such as the following: “Most offenders commit crimes because they are too lazy to find a lawful way out of a bad situation”; “Most offenders commit crimes because they have bad characters” (Unnever et al., 2010, p. 441).

7. Although the alpha value for the college sample (.67) is .03 less than the conventional .70 threshold for “acceptable” reliability, we feel the measure is appropriate for two reasons. First, we constructed the measure using both positively and negatively (but recoded) valenced questions. This approach is important for reducing bias from stylistic responding, but tends to reduce reliability coefficients (see Baumgartner & Steenkamp, 2001; Pickett & Baker, 2014). Second, our study is exploratory, in that we are focusing on a broader form of victim blame than what has been examined in prior studies (see Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994, who advise that when conducting such exploratory research alpha values of at least .60 are sufficient).

8. For example, in studying public perceptions of police fairness, Matsueda and Drakulich (2009) asked respondents, “What percent of the black people who are suspected of committing a crime in America do you think are treated fairly by the police?” In a similar direction, Welch and her colleagues (2011) posed this question to measure ethnic typification of crime: ‘‘What percent of people who commit violent crimes in this country would you say are Hispanic?”

9. The specific bidirectional measures were: “Now thinking about African Americans in the United States, how much do you disagree or agree with each of the following statements?” “There is a lot of discrimination against blacks in the U.S. today, limiting their chances to get ahead”; “It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites”; “Irish, Italians, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors”; “Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve”; and “Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class.” For both samples, the index demonstrated high reliability (Cronbach’s alpha values for the national sample = .89 and for the college sample = .80).

10. The perceived victimization risk index was comprised of five items that gauged how likely it was that respondents would experience a variety of crimes (burglary, assault, robbery, sexual assault, and homicide) over a five-year period. The index demonstrated acceptable reliability (α = .87 and .80 for the national and college sample, respectively).

11. To evaluate these effects further, ancillary analysis was conducted that examined the individual victim-blaming items on perceptions of the victim-offender overlap. Across both samples, most of the items used to create the dispositional index were statistically significant and in the expected direction. For the national sample, one variable, “carelessness (pay attention)” did not reach statistical significance; however, the remaining five items were significant and in the theorized direction. The two items that did not approach statistical significance in the college model were “global culpability” and, similar to the national model, “carelessness (pay attention).” We created a new variable that excluded the variables that did not reach statistical significance independently and reestimated all models. That is, for the national sample, the new victim-blaming variable excluded “carelessness (pay attention)”; for the college sample, the new victim-blaming variable omitted “global culpability” and “carelessness (pay attention).” For both samples, the results were substantively identical to the full version of victim blaming. For this reason, we retain the full version of dispositional attributions for victimization. We thank an anonymous reviewer for encouraging us to explore this line of analysis.

12. We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this avenue of inquiry.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the University at Albany Faculty Research Awards Program (FRAP)-Category A.